Search form

Deeplinks Blog

Deeplinks Blog

Oral argument has just concluded before the US Supreme Court in MGM v. Grokster. Here, from the courthouse steps, is the first EFF dispatch. The entire bench was engaged with argument from both sides. Three key points stood out: In at least some questions, the Court seemed concerned that...

Washington, DC, 3:26 a.m. EST Braving briskly mild weather and motion-detector floodlights, EFF staffers have arrived on the steps of the Supreme Court, claiming the first seats in the line reserved for members of the Supreme Court bar. The public line reached capacity at approximately 10:00 p.m. on Monday night...

Over at The Chronicle of Higher Education, Fordham University history professor Doron Ben-Atar makes short work of the entertainment industry's and the US Solicitor General's arguments in MGM v. Grokster: On the face of it, the case for harmony of interests between the studios and the nation is...

Residents of 56 Nations and Members of Hundreds of NGOs Sign Petition to Open Meetings on Intellectual Property and the Developing World Geneva - When the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) earlier this month shut out many public interest groups from two April meetings about the impact of patent, copyright...

They threaten nonprofits that use the Internet for fundraising and advocacy. That's nearly every modern nonprofit out there. Thankfully, there's a solution in the making. A newly minted organization called the Nonprofit Innovation Alliance (NIA) has clever plan for keeping business-method patents out of the nonprofit arena. It's...

EFF Joins Fight to Promote Technology Access for Charitable Groups Note: The Electronic Frontier Foundation is recirculating this press release on behalf of NIA for your information. Washington, DC - The Nonprofit Innovation Alliance (NIA) today announced that four of the nation's most prominent nonprofits - United Way of America...

Asks Court to Reaffirm Freedom of the Press San Jose, CA - Today the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed an appeal in a case that has broad implications for the rights of reporters to protect the confidentiality of their sources. Last week, a California Superior Court judge ruled...

The San Jose Mercury News gets it: Consider the following scenario. A drug company's research determines that one of its drugs already on the market is dangerous. The company decides the research results are proprietary trade secrets and bottles them up. It's clear that the public would be served...

Organization Launches Two-Week Celebration of Betamax-Protected Devices San Francisco, CA - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) yesterday kicked off a new campaign to celebrate the technological diversity protected by the Supreme Court's 1984 "Betamax ruling," which found that vendors cannot be held liable for contributory copyright infringement if...

The San Francisco Chronicle runs this fascinating article about Grammy award-winning singer/songwriter Fiona Apple's mythical next record, completed two years ago but shelved by her label. Here's a substantial noninfringing use of P2P networks if I've ever seen one: "Extraordinary Machine" is an album that Apple finished over two...

EFF is pleased to announce that we have submitted a paper to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the UN agency that advises global leaders on telecommuncations policy, as part of its survey of "Digital Rights Management" (DRM) technologies (ITU-R Working Party 6M Report on Content Protection Technologies). Our...

This week is Sunshine Week! Sunshine Week is an initiative of the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) to raise awareness about the critical importance of public access to government records. This week, EFF joins ASNE and the dozens of other organizations celebrating Sunshine Week in...

A Slashdotter tells a personal story illustrating how a trade secret -- or what a company claims is a trade secret -- can be a matter of public importance: Back in 1995 Steve Young of CNN told me "CNN protects its sources." I was on the phone with him...